The Adventure Gaming Periodical - Issue #14 - Letting the Tail Wag the Dog
Art First Writing
This week’s issue of The AGP is an essay about my own non-traditional writing workflow. In Issue #10, I wrote about how I seek out editors early and often in my writing process. However, I go further than working with editors early and often, I work with artists early and often as well. I’m going to discuss how this process has played on for two different projects: Return to STAR Station, and Orgy of the Blood Leeches, and then I’ll talk about the pros and cons of my writing process.
Traditional Production Process
In Issue #10, I dove into the traditional writing process, and here I extend it to the traditional production process going from rough draft to a fully laid out book.
Drafting
Developmental Editing
Copy and Line Editing
Layout
Art
I end up being much more fluid with where art enters into the process and the role of layout in the editing process. In this issue, I’m going to focus on talking about working with artists just like I discussed working with editors in Issue #10.
In a future issue, I’ll talk about how I prefer to work with a graphic designer who is also a game designer who helps to polish the manuscript further while laying out the text.
My Production Process
My production process ends up looking more like this.
Drafting
Art
Developmental Editing
Art
Copy and Line Editing
Art
Layout
Art
I’ve often discussed my neurodivergence and aphantasia in the context of maps, but this bleeds over into how I write and collaborate with artists. I don’t have any mental imagery, so I need to work with illustrators much sooner than most people. As a publisher, I always set aside money from prior projects, so I can fund art for new projects during the development process and before seeking crowdfunding.
I start with a general pitch for a project and a super rough draft, and then I commission art to help me visualize the writing. These can be creature illustrations, NPC illustrations, a cover mockup, a map, a render, a cover markup, a patch, or a poster. I just need something that I can write to, rather than conjuring up the mood from scratch. Working with artists is a collaboration for me, not just a commission, they drive how the work takes shape just as much the editor and myself drive the text.
From the first pitch and art, I’m able to work out my first whole draft, after which I usually have some more ideas for art that I’d like and want to bring in during the developmental editing process. I work with the editor to write to and incorporate new art and to figure out what other spot art we may need as the work emerges and takes shape.
As we focus on line editing, things tend to take a sharper focus, and we have a more focused idea for the art we need. This art tends to follow the format of a commission, we’re looking for something specific.
If something is a big project, it goes to crowdfunding, and this pays for layout and any art that has not been paid for during the development process. This is quite often larger, much more expensive, full spread pieces, covers, any spot art that we realize we need during the layout phase, and art for stretch goals.
I’m next going to talk through how I used this process in two different ways for two different projects: Return to STAR Station and Orgy of the Blood Leeches.
Return to STAR Station - Live in the 2024 Sci-Fi One-Shot Jam
Return to STAR Station is a module that had been eating me from the inside out. For Advanced Rules the final stretch goal of the campaign was a solo/wardenless adventure that used as many of the tools from Advanced Rules as possible as an example for designers and wardens. I was absolutely stuck on the premise for this module 😱
I knew that I wanted to pull a Roger Corman and re-use the map from Mitosis: Escape From STAR Station. I knew that the module would be about a new tenant at STAR Station after the events of Escape From STAR Station, so I knew the title would be Return to STAR Station. However, I had absolutely no clue what the module would actually be about, it was just a map, a title, and a collection of game mechanics!
I was originally planning on this being a text-only module like the rest of Advanced Rules, but this wasn’t working for me, I didn’t have art to plug into my writing process, and I didn’t have an art budget factored into this stretch goal because I originally thought it would be text-only. This is when I turned to my friend Evlyn Moreau’s Patreon. I had originally joined her Patreon to use some Mothership crew illustrations she had made in an unannounced project, and I had seen so much great horror and sci-fi artwork in her Patreon. I scoured through all of her Google folder of Patreon archives, and I found the cover image for the module.
Once I found that image, I searched for images that could help me create an ecosystem and life cycle for this creature. This led me to finding images like the one below.
Suddenly, I had a location and a set of encounters. From there, I still needed a reason for folks to be there, and that’s when I discovered the image that would define the pre-gen PCs for this module. These aren’t typical Mothership type characters, but they spoke to the spoopy vibe that I had landed on for this module. At the same time, Evlyn posted an image of a robotic hand, which she did redraw for me for the module, and I knew that this sentient robotic hand would be the McGuffin for the module. There was also an image of a pair of “evil” investigators accompanying the illustration of the PCs.
I now had a faction for the PCs, an opposing faction, a McGuffin that both factions are trying to get, and an entire life cycle of encounters. From there, the idea of STAR Station now being inhabited by a cult came to life. The final piece that put all of this together came from the call for entries for this year’s Sci-Fi One-Shot Jam with a theme of natural phenomena. It helped me to land on the classic B-Movie sci-fi trope of an encounter with a comet causing a confrontation with an alien creature.
I went from nothing but a super loose idea to a completed zine in about a week. It also helped that this lined up with a WIP week hosted on The Lost Bay Discord. I had a place to post things as I went along for accountability and encouragement. Without Evlyn’s Patreon, I would have continued to be stuck. It is a major lesson for me that if I’m trying to make something small but still want to have art to guide my process that I should remember to turn to Patreon (or other service) of illustrators who I’d like to work with. It’s affordable, and it’s not the end of the world that your illustrations are not exclusive to your work. Using the limitations of using existing illustrations helped me to put together the whole picture, a lot like using small details from a random table to help you build out your world.
Orgy of the Blood Leeches - Launching for Mothership Crime Month - October/November
I’ve been working on Orgy of the Blood Leeches for two years now! I’m almost ready to put together an ashcan zine of the first area of the module, and it’s taken working with five different artists and an editor to get it to this point. I now feel comfortable launching it this October/November as part of Mothership Crime Month, a cross-collaboration BackerKit campaign aligned with Tuesday Knight Games next Mothership release, Wages of Sin.
For this module, I started with a general premise, Shivers on a large space station with the population of Oakland, California. I knew that there were leeches that infected people and turned them into merged erotic beings like if the movie Society were hot and gay. I had a mood board, and I had a cover mockup from David Wilkie.
I had no clue what the life cycle of these creatures looked like. This when I reached out to three different artists to do a sample piece of art, and Amanda Lee Franck was the clear winner. I met with Amanda to go over the idea, and I gave her free rein to develop the creatures. She came back with sketches of three different nine-stage life cycles with three different versions of the leeches.
We were able to narrow this down to there being three different leeches (a tripledemic) and ten images overall. From there, I was able to write the encounters and develop the general ideas for NPCs, and I was able to have something that could then go through two rounds of developmental editing with Christian Sorrell. From there I was able to create rough descriptions of named NPCS, which I was then able to work with Amanda to develop the characters and to further develop the 70s retrofuture vibe that now defines this module and the RV Games universe as a whole.
With encounters written, I was then able to approach Sam Wildman to develop a rough render of Trellick Station, and he has recently created a new version that has shifted the writing for the first area again (it is now in zero-g, which means a lot has to change)
Alongside this art, I also worked with Lone Archivist to develop a corporate logo and patch for crowdfunding when I was stuck on writing. This logo really pushed forward the 1970s vibes.
Finally, to help put together the ashcan demo of the first area, I worked with Zach Hazard to develop a cover that will also become a movie poster for the crowdfunded full version of the module. This has given me a lot of oomph to continue writing with my new editor Greenspore.
Discussion
Working with editors and artists early in the writing process is a fantastic way to engage in a more rigorous writing process, honing the text and building around the art. However, there is one big issue with this: it’s a really slow and expensive way to write 😅
However, I have learned some ways to hack this system by leaning on Patreon and peer/community feedback for smaller projects. There’s nothing that beats a fully crowdfunded module with custom art and a dedicated editor, but that shouldn’t stop you from adopting an art forward writing style even if you are not an illustrator yourself. Visual artists give a different perspective that is complementary to more literary minded folks, and the intersection of the two is where the real magic happens. Let the tail wag the dog, let the art guide your writing instead of letting your writing dictate the art.
Crowdfunding
Hecate Cassette Archive - Late Pledges Open
A supernatural Mothership 1e adventure of anarchy and analog audio
Quality Assurance (QA) - Late Pledges Open
An orbital disaster, a race against time, and one very special robot. Escape with the target, save some lives, or die trying. A one-shot for Mothership 1e. Distributed by RV Games.
Return to Perinthos - Still Able to Donate
A 200-page memorial book of megadungeon tiles in the memory of Jennell Jaquays. Community made, distributed by RV Games.
Advanced Rules - Late Pledges Open
A 100-page community compendium of house rules for Wardens and Mothership creators
Paid Subscriber Materials
Paid subscribers get permanent DrivethruRPG access to Return to STAR Station as part of their subscription. It is currently free on Itch during the length of the Sci-Fi One-Shot Jam, but it will only be available as a paid module afterwards.
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